Off the tennis court, Charlie Hou and Jordan Lu are as smart as they come.

Both Plymouth High School students have top-of-the-charts grade-point averages and ACT scores with Hou attaining a perfect 36 and Lu a 35.

They also are as sharp as they come on the tennis court and with leadership skills, attributes that they parlayed during the just-concluded 2014 varsity boys tennis season for the Wildcats.

What the co-captains brought to the table was much more than the ability to smack tennis balls and successfully track down rivals' best attempts to sneak shots past them.

"You're talking about the upper, top 1 percent in the nation academically," said Plymouth head coach Tom Kimball, justifiably over the moon at how Lu and Hou performed and led. "But they're both humble kids and they're just committed to working hard in anything they do.

"Fortunately for me, tennis is their hobby and they put as much effort into that as they do to anything else that they're involved in. It's paid off. They're a couple of the best players that the school's had."

Raising the bar

Kimball said all season that this was the best team he's ever presided over at Plymouth. And the team excelled, winning the KLAA South Division for the fourth consecutive season while reaching fourth at last week's Division 1 regionals.

"Those two set the tone for sure," Kimball noted. "Because they're leaders, they have expectations, they have goals, they have a desire to just keep improving and be a better team.

"That's kind of the expectation they set with their teammates and that's how they approach each practice, each match, each tournament and the other kids pick up on that. We benefit from these two guys."

They did much more than just be strong team leaders, of course.

No. 1 singles player Lu and No. 3 singles player Hou fell just short of joining Aaron Zhang as the only Plymouth player thus far to make the state finals individually.

Both Lu and Hou talked during a practice just days before regionals about how they've progressed as student-athletes over the course of their varsity careers.

Always working

The common thread was sacrifice, spending countless hours hammering away during workouts during the off-season to sharpen up a particular stroke.

All of that extra work also helped them gain additional speed, power and agility required to go to battle against the galaxy of stellar prep tennis players in the area — which they now are part of.

"Just hours of training, every single day this summer," said the 15-year-old Lu, who carries a 4.1 GPA and began hitting tennis balls when he was just 7 at the Livonia YMCA. "You got to put in a lot of effort to be good at tennis. Just work on one stroke at a time.

"As you progress, just start doing a bit of everything and keep working until you spot something you want to work on that day. Then just keep practicing on that specific thing until you get it right."

Hou, 17 and owner of a 4.4 GPA, started his tennis "hobby" when just 10 years old. He also subscribes to Lu's blue-collar blueprint for excellence.

"Here at our practices, we try to hit as many ground strokes as we can, work on all areas of our game, volleys and serves," Hou said. "One day we'll work on a particular weakness that we might have seen in a previous match."

Plenty of strengths

Of course, their coach with the Wildcats doesn't see much of anything missing from their respective games.

"Jordan has a lot of strengths," Kimball said. "He can hit winning shots from forehand, backhand, he's developed a really solid confident net game. He can hit, he can blast a serve over 100 miles an hour.

"And he has a great variety of serves, so he can hit one that's going to kick up and bounce up high and frustrate certain opponents. He can hit one hard and flat that's going to blow right by you."

As for fourth-year varsity player Hou, the coach heaped on praise for how much he's meant to the squad.

"He's turned into one of the best leaders our team has had," Kimball said. "He motivates the players, he's improved his game. He's one of the guys out here working on becoming a tennis player.

"Every evening he's out here playing with his brother, his dad, his teammates, whoever. And I think his teammates pick up on that and realize that's the reason he is so good."

Hou started his Plymouth career as a freshman, filling in at No. 1 singles for then-injured Zhang.

"Aaron Zhang, you might have heard of him, unstoppable tennis god," said Hou, laughing. "He had a bad knee so at the beginning (of that season) he wasn't in so I had to sort of play 1 for a while.

"He came back in and did his thing, so I was 2 for a while. Then I was 2 for another year, and then 3 my junior year and 3 my senior year."

Some of Plymouth's current youngsters, such as freshman Nathan Tseng and five sophomores, might think that way about Hou and Lu these days.

Those teammates see for themselves the way the veterans carry themselves and never settle for anything less than their very best.

"The message to them is about having a positive attitude," Lu said. "Always putting in your effort every day even though it's a tough opponent you might not be able to beat. Just give it your all every day.

"A lot of kids, when they're done with their matches they'll watch me and try and follow what I do. So I try to be a good role model because they're always trying to copy me and see how they can get better."

Stay positive

Hou concurred, noting that he tries "to have a positive outlook" when he's on the court.

"I always fight for every point, full-effort," Hou stressed. "And I try to show that to the younger kids, to put their full effort into every point, and try their hardest, have fun."

Meanwhile, both downplayed the notion that they might be better tennis players simply because they are so incredibly smart academically.

"I mean, I feel sometimes I can maybe play better than I would because I can sort of think out on the court a little bit," Hou said. "It's kind of a help, but tennis isn't so much about that.

"It's more about skill and mental toughness."

Kimball was a bit more receptive to that correlation though.

"I think so, you're more open to learn things faster and be more interested in the finer points of the game that may be the difference between winning a close match or losing one," Kimball said. "So they're coachable, they just love the opportunity to try something new.

"Even if it's frustrating at first and they can't do it perfectly they're going to stick to it and keep at it and all of a sudden they have a new weapon in their game. They have them all now."

So although Hou won't be back in 2015, Lu and the rest of next season's Plymouth team undoubtedly will be locked and loaded to do plenty of damage on the rest of the area's tennis world.